Mr. Speaker, I hope to be very brief with my comments, but I would like to make a connection here between an issue that I have consistently been bringing to the House, that is, the issue of Canada's national security.
This particular bill comes about as a very direct result of the lack of attention that the government and its predecessor have paid to the issue of national security in Canada. It is a concern to the people of the United States, to the people responsible for the defence industry of the United States.
We have to remember this. Whether we like it or not, the fact of the matter is that in Canada we have the ability to have expenditures of many types on many things where we basically do not have to put out the money for the defence we are getting from the country to the south of us.
These people of course have their own vested interest. We act as a buffer. We recognize to a certain extent that we are the meat in the sandwich between them and other people who would be adversaries to them. They do have their own vested interest, but the fact of the matter is that we as Canadians have the ability to have a defence budget significantly smaller than we would need if we did not have the level of co-operation we have with the people in the United States.
Secondly, they have a very legitimate concern and interest in the transfer of technology, information and intelligence. Even within the confines of the lower 48 states, the United States has seen many of its facilities ending up being compromised by people who have come into its own territory. As it tried to bring that into focus and regain control of that, the United States naturally took a look at the sources of these malevolent forces coming toward it. Many of those sources were coming through a very porous 49th parallel.
We must pay far more attention to the entire issue of national security. Interestingly, this issue of intelligence gathering and management has everything in the world to do with the difficulties that this nation and indeed many nations around the world are having with respect to organized crime and the fact that in many instances terrorism is bought and paid for by the proceeds of organized crime. Organized criminals and terrorists have the ability to go across boundaries literally at the speed of light, at the flick of a computer switch.
This particular agreement, which came about, I believe, in good faith between our nation and the nation of the United States, is a good example of how when we come across a problem we can work together and work our way around the problem.
The necessity of this legislation is due to our charter of rights and freedoms. The necessity of this legislation is due to the way in which our country is configured and the way in which we welcome immigrants to our country to be part of this great nation of Canada. As we give those immigrants opportunities within our society and as they in turn help to construct our society, to build our society and to add to our intellectual wealth and the quality and fabric of our society, these people are building our society. At the same time, because of the concerns that the defence industry was having in the United States, it felt that this was a step away from its ability to be able to control people who would have access to its very highly valued, highly confidential secret information.
Our caucus had the opportunity, through the good auspices of our defence critic, to have two or three meetings with the defence industry while this was coming to resolution. I thank the member, but I also thank the defence industry for taking the time and interest to inform us and our caucus as to what was going on.
As the industry came to us, it was made very evident that there must be a connection. There must be a management of information among the solicitor general, who would be responsible for CSIS and the RCMP, immigration, foreign affairs, industry and foreign trade. All of these and more of our departments must do a far better job of sharing and managing information and intelligence as it is being gathered.
I am very pleased that between the two nations we have arrived at this bill, at this accommodation. As I say, it shows goodwill between the two nations, which bodes well for the future. However, I say to the government, we must pay attention to the fact that we had to do this bill in the first place. The reason we had to do this bill is that the government unfortunately is not paying anywhere near the attention that it should be to the issue of information gathering and management in Canada for the sake of our national security.